A cart is filled with pre-filled bags of food, during a Thanksgiving food drive for the Ottawa Food Bank at a grocery store in Ottawa, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin TangFood banks across Canada continue to face soaring need this Thanksgiving, with one executive warning that things could quickly get worse.
“And you put all of those things together and suddenly you can understand why people are turning to food banks.” In Quebec, demand for food assistance has been unrelenting for more than a year, according to Martin Munger, director of Les Banques alimentaires du Québec, a network of 32 organizations that supply local food aid programs.His organization’s latest data, from March 2022, showed its network served 671,000 people in the province on average each month, an increase of nine per cent from 2021 and 33 per cent from 2019.
Both Boulter and Hetherington say their organizations have so far been able to keep up with the need by increasing fundraising efforts, though Hetherington notes that Daily Bread is currently running a deficit budget. They’re partnering with Food Banks B.C. on a provincewide campaign to collect online donations for food banks across British Columbia.
“We’re hoping, with our advertising power, our following, and our ability, to get this out in front of a lot of people,” she said.